Do oil companies pay their fair share?

[mrgybe]

If mid-east oil was diverted from the US to India/ China the demand from those countries for US production would drop and the domestic market would become the better option for domestic refineries.

[mac]

It must come with the oily guy manual. Instructions are, if you don't have an argument, put words in the other guys mouth to make them look silly, or unpatriotic. Let's go by the numbers.

1. The US' military strategy was developed when we imported even more oil from the Middle East. The time cycle for military budgets is long. Few of us have forgotten that an oil man, backed by other oil men, went to war in Iraq based on falsified information. Today's current market share, or tomorrows, doesn't change that or the money spent. And even today, the loss of 10% of our supply would devastate the economy.

2. Next mrgybe attributes the need to import oil to opposition to developing local supplies. Of course the battle over oil development is substantially more nuanced, and depends on three factors: are the lease revenues high enough, who do they go to, and are the environmental impacts adequately mitigated. Oil resources subject to lease are public resources, where many parties have a legitimate claim to the use of the overlying resources, and a mixed use policy that accommodates all users is the fairest. For the past 30 years that I know of, big oil has pressed for leases when the market is saturated so the lease sale value will be limited. Because the vast bulk of revenues go to the Federal government, and states and local governments must deal with the costs of oil development without those revenues, they have often opposed development. The oil industry could have been instrumental in changing the cost sharing formula to resolve that problem, and their life would have been easier--but it hasn't tried. The oil industry could have set models for safe transportation of oil and model mitigation of impacts--but they haven't tried. Instead, they have litigated nearly everthing, outspending local and state governments by multiples--and still they lose a local taxing appeal.

Instead you get an arrogant attitude about "oil on a beach for a few weeks." This ignores the sad fact that decades after the Exxon Valdiz, beaches in Alaska have not all recovered. As mrgybe continues to demonstrate, big oil is its own worst enemy.

[isobars]

[coboardhead]

Isobars wrote

[coboardhead]

mrgybe wrote

[isobars]

[windoggi]

[swchandler]

Given chance after chance, isobars continually misses the mark. He's incorrigible.

[pueno]

[coboardhead]